PHILADELPHIA -- Technically, they're the 72 stairs on the east side of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But everyone knows them as the Rocky Steps. The fictional boxer occupies prime real estate in the city's sports pantheon, and a statue of him stands outside a building that houses the work of Rodin and Picasso.

Atop those steps on Friday, underneath a threatening but ultimately cooperative sky, MLS commissioner Don Garber joined Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter and dozens of kids in a ceremony to kick off All-Star week. After a few quick speeches, the kids sent soccer balls careening down the Rocky Steps toward Eakins Oval. T-shirts were handed out reading, "Let's kick them in the crown jewels," a reference to the London home of next Wednesday's All-Star opponent, European champion Chelsea, and a slogan appropriate for a city known for its confidence and grit.

The MLS All-Stars, who will have only two days to train together, surely will be underdogs against the high-priced English club, but the league they'll represent is as strong as ever. With more clubs, stadiums, investors, big-name players and visibility than ever before, these are relatively sunny days for Major League Soccer. Garber, a former NFL executive who took over MLS nearly 13 years ago, can take a significant amount of credit. He shrewdly has guided the league from a limping 10-team outfit in 2002 to a robust 19-club circuit that's the home of foreign icons like David Beckham and Thierry Henry and the launching pad for American stars like Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altidore.

Following Friday's festivities, Garber sat down with Sporting News for a wide-ranging interview that covered those successes, as well as several of the considerable challenges the American league still faces, from growing the game at home to competing with the entrenched powers abroad.

In the first part, Garber discusses the MLS's financial health, its relationship with the U.S. national team and performance in international competitions and the effort to make the game more free-flowing and appealing to fans:

Growth of the league, growth of the game

SPORTING NEWS: Considering how far the league has come over the past few years, are the "Rocky Steps" an appropriate setting and metaphor?

GARBER: I think they are. I believe that there is a desire on behalf of most people in our country and certainly many people in the sports industry that want to see Major League Soccer, and soccer in America, really grow and prosper. It will be a generation before we're thought of the way most people think of the other major leagues in this country, so therefore I think that we are still a bit of an underdog. But there's certainly a lot more momentum and we're getting some pleasant surprises in a wide variety of areas that have us feeling that we're going to get into that ring and, who knows, not be an underdog and get a knockout?

SN: We last sat down and spoke 18 months ago. Since then, what's been the biggest success? Beckham re-signing with L.A.? The new stadiums in Kansas City and Houston? Expansion in Montreal?

GARBER: It's much bigger than that. At 30,000 feet, there's been a real sea-change among those who influence the way people think, influence the way they spend their money and influence decision making and that's moved where more people are beginning to care about the sport and believe in Major League Soccer. Years ago, I would sit on a plane next to some corporate CEO and he would say to me, "What do you do?"

"I run Major League Soccer."

"What exactly is MSL? And with all the kids who play, why aren't more people supporting the sport? When will soccer make it in America?"

I still have to answer those questions, but it's no longer on a regular basis. That skepticism has waned quite a bit. Over the last couple of years, what's driven that has been the massive success of our new expansion teams. The incredible popularity and social and cultural breakthrough in the Pacific Northwest. The amount of money that broadcasters have been investing in the sport and MLS, with our new NBC deal. There's a bit of a buzz, and that buzz is leading to some momentum for the league.

ESPN came out with a sports poll six months ago which surprised us. We had no idea that the sport had grown that quickly, but it said among 12-24 year olds pro soccer is the second-most popular sport. And MLS was included in that. It wasn't just "I just love the Premier League." It was, "I love pro soccer." And that empowers us even further because those kids are going to grow up just like those people who are supporting our league today grew up with the game and kind of get it.

Parallel to all of that, international soccer – both at the national team level and the club level – has exploded in our country. Far more so than we thought when the league was founded (in 1996). More people just like soccer.

I was at my bank today meeting with my banker, a guy who's a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee fan and who grew up in the Bronx and said, "You know, I don't really follow you guys that much, but I've been to Red Bull Arena and I was captivated by Euro (2012)."

That's not something I would have heard a couple of years ago. We talk a lot about building a soccer nation in America. It's built. The challenge now for us is converting all those people who love the game into being a passionate fan and supporter of their local club. And that will be our continued task for the next couple of years.

SN: What sort of reception did you get when you attended the UEFA Champions League final in Munich? What do European soccer administrators and officials want to ask you about MLS?

GARBER: We were asked to be one of the founding members of this new association of professional leagues that's called the World League Association (Note: Garber sits on the 11-member board of directors). It's chaired by Dave Richards, who's the chairman of the (English) Premier League. It's an assembly of all the league presidents, their version of commissioners, mostly from Europe but starting to be more global.

The intrigue and respect that the other pro football leagues have for MLS is significant. They love our system. It's our model. The fact that we have revenue sharing. We have reasonable cost controls. We have a real strategic way of thinking as owners, collectively. It's a very commercially-oriented focus. It's the American pro sports thing. In this country, we really get how to operate and manage pro sports leagues in a way that builds for the common good. That's not something that exists in the other leagues.

SN: Could MLS ever face the debt issues that plague so many clubs in Europe?

GARBER: Today, teams can put debt on their stadiums. We have no debt on our clubs. It's not a policy; it's just that we remain a relatively small business and for today that's what's been working. The league, based on our structure, has the right to approve any financial transaction and at this point we're very comfortable with the situation that exists at the league level and the club level. There's not debt at the league level, and it's not an issue for us today.

Who knows what will happen sometime in the future. Life's a long time. But where we are today seems to be working fine.

SN: With all the metrics improving, with revenue up and with the new TV contract, what do you anticipate will be the major issues when collective bargaining begins again in 2014?

GARBER: You know, the league still isn't operating financially as well as we'd like. The good news is that we're moving in the right direction, but we still have many teams that are not doing as well financially as we would like. We continue to advance massive amounts of money in players and infrastructure. The total investment in the league is well more than $2 billion today, and nobody's gotten any return on their money. So when we talk about improvement on gate and television and revenues, that's good. But we've got a long way to go before we're feeling like we're just sitting around dividing up the spoils, which might exist in some of the other leagues.

MLS, the U.S. national team and the global stage

SN: How big of a blow was the United States' Under-23 team's failure to qualify for the Olympics? There were a lot of good, young MLS players on that team.

GARBER: Listen, we've had national teams that haven't qualified for the Olympics. (There are countries) that haven't qualified for the World Cup that were pretty good teams. At the end of the day, we would have preferred that our national team qualified for the Olympics than not. But it's part of the sport that these things happen, and you've got to learn to get beyond it. We missed an opportunity. We missed an opportunity for our players, our league, and to co-promote with our new broadcast partner. I was very disappointed, and I hope we're able to get back on track and qualify again four years from now.

SN: Does it say anything about, and L.A. Galaxy coach Bruce Arena has talked about this (to The Washington Post in May.), the development gap for players 18 to 22, who are sort of right in the Olympic wheelhouse? We've got MLS teams investing in teenagers in the development academy and we've got the senior teams, but there really isn't anywhere for these guys in the middle to go.

GARBER: I think Bruce's comments were spot on. There is a bit of a development gap, and we've got to try to find a way to address that and look to whether the reserve league is the best approach to close that gap or is it a closer relationship with the second division or third division. There's a wide variety of things that we're very focused on. We had a committee meeting amongst our ownership just last week where we were talking about that and trying to figure out the right plan to address some of those issues.

SN: As you said, good teams don't qualify for the World Cup. England has missed it. Holland and France have missed it. What happens to MLS if the U.S. misses the World Cup?

GARBER: It certainly would be far more devastating than not qualifying for the Olympics.

SN: Is there a contingency plan? A panic room?

GARBER: No. No. All we can do as a league is do everything we can to be supportive of our federation, to release players in a way that's far more cooperative than perhaps other leagues are with their national teams. To be close to Jurgen Klinsmann -- he'll be at our All-Star Game -- to have him talk with our technical people at the league level and the club level and do all we can. But at the end of the day, the ball's round and it bounces a lot of different ways. You hope it bounces in for the good guys.

SN: Do you think Klinsmann is doing a good job?

GARBER: Yeah, I do.

SN: Do you appreciate his feedback?

GARBER: I do. I do. I think Jurgen's candid. He's honest. He's hard-working. He believes in the league. I think he has a belief in the league that is far more than perhaps previous national team coaches have had.

SN: Some have said he's not picking enough MLS players, that his selections don't reflect well on the league. (Note: Five of the 23 players named to Klinsmann's recent World Cup qualifying roster were from MLS.)

GARBER: I don't think MLS players should get picked because they're playing in our league. They should get picked because they deserve to be picked. But there's much more to our relationship with the national team and the ongoing dialogue with our national team coach than just picking a player. He's got to qualify our guys for the World Cup and hopefully get as far as they can and maybe even win. And he needs the best possible team to do that. If those players are in MLS, he's going to pick them. If they're not MLS, he's not. But there's far more to that dynamic.

SN: I thought the Galaxy's failure in the CONCACAF Champions League was just about the biggest gut-punch MLS has received, maybe, since contraction. It was devastating. That team, more so than any MLS team ever, both because of its success on the field and in terms of its visibility, was poised to win it. And they fell flat on their face. At what point should we stop apologizing and making excuses and start expecting and demanding that an MLS team win this competition?

GARBER: You can't demand anything when you're sitting in my chair. Fans can because they have the right to do whatever they want. But from a league perspective, it's inconceivable to think that we'd make demands like that on our clubs. I don't think at any time that a team is going into an important game and not trying to win. But again, just like Sean Johnson had a bad day in qualifying and something I'm sure that he regrets, the ball bounces and sometimes it's going to bounce your way and at times it won't.

Was I disappointed that an MLS team didn't get further, whether that was the Galaxy or (Toronto) FC? Absolutely disappointed. At the end of the day, we've got to stand toe-to-toe with our neighbors in Mexico. We've got to try to win that tournament. We've got to try to get to the world club championship. That's got to be a priority.

SN: When you spoke earlier about getting all the people who populate this soccer nation to really get behind MLS, it seems there isn't much more you can accomplish on the field than to win CONCACAF. Beat Mexico. And it's not happening.

GARBER: It is, without doubt, an important priority for the league. But the way of addressing that is not just saying "Hey guys, go out and win." It's how are our teams structured? What kind of schedule do we have? What kind of clutter exists for those teams that are playing there?

SN: Is there more you can do to help?

GARBER: There are many, many more things that we can try to do to try to prioritize that tournament.

SN: Can you give us an example?

GARBER: There's lightening the schedule for those teams that are participating there because they're at a competitive disadvantage with all those games. It's perhaps providing them with some flexibility with their rosters. There's a number of things we can do.

At the end of the day, the league needs to improve and the quality of our players needs to get better. All those things that we want, our fans want, our owners and teams want. And that's not something you can waive a magic wand and expect to happen overnight. It's going to happen in time.

SN: Would you consider reducing the number of regular season games (from 34)?

GARBER: I don't know the answer to that. I'll have to give that some thought.

Improving the game

SN: Regarding improving the quality, we love obsessing over the disciplinary committee, and every time those announcements come out on Thursday afternoon, fans and writers argue over whether the decision was fair, whether this guy or that guy should've been suspended too, whether the league is biased for this team or that team. Our sense is that is that the identity of the individual player or his team isn't the point. The committee's decision is a teaching moment. It's about the big picture and trying to suppress one style of play and promote another and give examples of what's acceptable and what's not. Is that the way you see it as well?

GARBER: You've got it right. It's important for everyone to understand that this is not a bunch of guys sitting behind a curtain licking their chops and watching tape, thinking, "What can we do today so that we can piss people off?" It's quite the opposite.

It starts with a lot of discussion at the board level that dictates what kind of league we want to be. What kind of behavior do we want to see out on our fields from our coaches and players? What style of play do we want? How do we want to ensure that our players are safe? That direction, which is board driven, comes to the league and we sit as a league office and try to figure out the right way to ensure that we can deliver on that direction.

The disciplinary committee is in essence acting on behalf of the commissioner. The way the league rules are written, the commissioner basically is responsible for discipline. The committee is set up to advise the commissioner's office with a lot of very talented, experienced soccer people looking at tape and trying to make decisions that are in the best interests of the league. Dealing with precedent, dealing with balance and fairness, dealing with our players union.

The reason that it comes out on Thursday when the committee makes a decision on Tuesday morning is the first group that's called is the (MLS) Players Union. The player has the right to appeal that decision, and that's all done in concert with the MLSPU.

The MLSPU has been very pleased with the process this year. You should speak to them and get their reaction. It's hard. It's a painful part of our job. But we feel good about the decisions that that committee has made, and it has the full support of our board. I will say, unequivocally, that there is absolutely no bias, at no time, for any player or any player club. And anybody who thinks that has the right to, and fans certainly love to see controversy and the cloud of conspiracy. But that's just not the way it is.

SN: Is there more the league can do, in its effort to market soccer in America, to influence the way the game looks and appeal to fans in this country?

GARBER: We need to promote an attacking style of play. Goal scoring is up this year -- for the first time in quite some time. We've had some great games. We've had a lot of goals. Fans like goals. You can't argue with that. They also like quality soccer. So you want to promote attacking soccer and at the same time you want to promote having a safe and attractive style. And the best way to address that starts with talking to our coaches and players, and if that talking to doesn't get the results we want we have to do it through discipline. It's a carrot and a stick.